


Sugar, I'm Going Down

by melly_diamond



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: Depression, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Self-Harm, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:44:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melly_diamond/pseuds/melly_diamond
Summary: The Kaulitz twins are flighty, everyone knows that. The G's are the strong, steady patient ones, the backbone of the band. But even the backbone can bend, even break, and when it seems like the band might be on hiatus forever, the loss is too much for Georg to take. And it's not just the loss of the music that breaks him apart.





	Sugar, I'm Going Down

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back specifically for a friend who liked dark matter, difficult topics and struggle. I've tried to warn for anything that could upset, but if I missed anything, it was not intentional. The shifts in tense are intentional, however.

_December 15th, 2010, post –encore …_

_Tom was flushed, the grin stretching across his face. “They want you, Georg,” he panted, tossing three pairs of panties and a bra the size of the Kremlin onto the couch. “They’re yelling for you, listen!”_

_And they were. Gustav gave him an increasingly rare smile. “Get your ass out there, Hagen and wiggle it too, the fangirls love it.”_

_“He’s got no ass to wiggle, but pretend you’re all that and go!” Tom slapped his butt and pushed him back into the wings, and Georg tossed a grin back over his shoulder at his friend and made his way back out under the lights, to where the screams rose when he appeared and he was pelted with his own share of lingerie._

_He slid the thongs onto his forearms like bracelets and waved them at the crowd, and looked down into the faces there, cheering for him, and backstage, he pushed the bustier that had landed at his feet – warm from being worn, even - at Gustav. “Here, I know you’ve been looking for a little lift and separation under your ...”_

_“Fuck off,” snorted Gustav, who nonetheless held it up. “Purple is my color though, don’tcha think?”_

_He tossed it at Bill, figuring he’d find a way to incorporate it into his next stage outfit, and went out to soak in the “Gustav, Gustav, Gustav!”_

_Georg looked over at Bill, seeing his expression, and couldn’t help smiling back; Bill looked amused and excited both, still innocent after all this time. Bill himself was anything but, but the smile could still melt the heart of even the most rabid hater._

_Later, in their suite, there was champagne and sushi and other food Georg couldn’t pronounce (or keep down, frankly) and sake and it seemed like they were on top of the world, had it all and it would never end._

_Except, of course, that everything does._

~*~

She’d been gone for two weeks; it felt like longer. It _looked_ like longer too, if one merely looked around the house they’d bought together just last year. Two weeks of no feminine influence, left only to Georg to keep up, and it looked less like a home and more like a crack house.

He could give two shits less how the house looked. Or how he looked. Or how anything at all looked, really; appearances could be deceiving. After all, they’d looked like the perfect couple, right?

She’d left him after four years, after countless “I love you’s,” after distance had failed to separate them, when “I’ll be home soon” had meant something real, after time had only made them stronger, he’d thought. As it turned out, distance wasn’t the enemy after all – proximity was.

When he was gone on the road, she hadn’t worried, it seemed, knowing that her boy loved her, was faithful to her. No girl had ever changed that, and many had tried. When Georg was gone, she never questioned him. But when he had come home, and stayed home - and stayed, and stayed – doubt had crept in. Then suspicion. Then prying and not believing, and the fights and finally, the slammed door that seemed to echo through the house endlessly, as though she had stripped the place to the bare walls and left him nothing. How she could think there was any other woman in his life still confused him, cause there wasn’t.

No woman.

His possessions strewn around the house mocked him; the trappings of success meant nothing when there was no one to share them with.

~*~

 

The twins were gone off to the US, and showed no signs of coming home anytime soon; they were bent on conquering the States in their own inimitable way, and although he and Gustav mocked them – to their faces, as much as Skype could be considered a face – they were intent on their plans. There would be another album, another tour … soon. 

Soon was next month. Then another month. Then another, until a year, eighteen months, two years had gone by. And still, his bass gathered dust in his music room, and their management bickered with the twins and amongst themselves, and information came from all sides, none of it correct.

Finally, he stopped listening.

~*~

Gustav, surprisingly (to Georg anyway) got a life. He found a girlfriend, bought a house to renovate, even finally gave in and bought his beloved American muscle car and spent literally hours restoring, cleaning, waxing and then driving around in it. Sometimes Georg went for a ride with him, but as the weeks went on, and their lives became perfectly ordinary, the calls came less, the visits lasted less time and finally, there were long stretches of time when they didn’t speak at all.

It was life, right? Nothing lasted forever.

Not success.

Not love.

Not friendship.

It all crumbled away in the end, and you were left with yourself.

Some people could handle that.

Some couldn’t.

Georg, as it turned out – steady, strong, patient Georg – couldn’t.

~*~

He doesn’t remember how he got here, in this antiseptic room, with its blinding natural light and carefully chosen, non-combative prints on the walls; flowers, lakes, the occasional starfish, all in simple black frames on stark white walls.

He doesn’t remember being in such a physical state that he had to be strapped to the bed, or when he got the bandages that swath his arms, covering the forearms that aren’t nearly as big as they used to be; who was there to work out for? No one saw him. No one cared.

He doesn’t remember waking up with eerily calm faces hovering over his or why people are asking him questions he doesn’t think are any of their fucking business.

He doesn’t remember feeling this bad until he does; and when he does, it sends him clawing for anything sharp, anything numbing, anything blinding, just so he doesn’t have to feel/sense/see.

But there is nothing to hide behind here. Nothing to distract him; nothing but white and black. Not even the red of fresh blood or the muddy brownish-red of dried to soothe him. Blow is white, right? That belongs here. And his favorite knife, the tiny Swiss army one has a black ebony handle. That should be here too. But no. There is nothing, just emptiness. And isn’t that what his life has become, after all?

~*~

 

He stares down at the notebook, then up at the therapist.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

His voice is raspy; between the DT’s and the screaming to just let him go the fuck _home_ already and finally, the tears, his vocal cords have had a rough time of it.

“I’m not – this has proven to be a really effective way for people to figure out how they got here, and why.” 

The therapist is calm; it’s her job to be temperate, her job to be objective, to help him get better. This would be fine if Georg was sick, he thinks, but really the only thing that’s wrong is that after months, years now of people leaving him alone, someone decided to care enough to figure out what he was doing. He still doesn’t know who it was. He’s not sure he really wants to know. Or rather, if he never finds out, he can live with that. Cause he has been living, even if people now think it was a hell of a way to exist.

“I got here via ambulance, because someone broke into my goddamned house, stuck their nose into my business and dragged my ass here. That answers your questions, right?”

He is resistant, argumentative, secretive, combative and angry; she’s seen it all before.

“Do the exercise. Take your time and think about every answer.”

“I’ve spent the last two years not thinking. I’ve gotten good at it. Isn’t it enough to celebrate the small victories?”

That almost gets him a tiny smile. Almost.

“Then it’s time to start again.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know.”

She leans back in her chair - he’s still not trusted enough to be alone - and he stares down at the smooth, blank page, and then at the pen in his hand. He could, maybe, puncture one of the old wounds still healing on his arm with the tip of the pen, just to see the bright spurt, feel the heat of fresh blood, but he’s under no illusions that this room is at all private or that he’d be allowed to do more than make the slightest move in that direction. He’s actually rather surprised they aren’t making him do this little task in crayon.

Small concessions to dignity – not that he has any of that left.

~*~

 

**A**

He thinks a moment, then writes:

_Accidents_

He’s always been clumsy, always fallen over his own feet, always bumping into and tripping over things; it’s been a running joke in his life for as long as he can remember. He never cares as long as it doesn’t translate to his bass playing, and it doesn’t. On stage he is never a klutz; in fact, Tom has tripped over his own big-assed shoes more times than any of them can count. 

In a world that seems designed to make him fall on his face in every possible way, the stage is his safe place, his little fiefdom, cause of course, Bill rules the stage, and the others are just vassals. He’s always liked that way just fine.

**B**

_Breaking_

He has never known a heart could actually break – it’s always seemed to be a figure of speech to him, kind of a weak one, truth be told, and when people get dramatic about it, he privately rolls his eyes. Even if the unthinkable happened and She left, or if other people left, life went on, right? You picked up, you moved forward, you did what you had to do. Georg is nothing if not a pragmatist, and all this overdramatic bullshit means nothing to him.

No one is more surprised than him at how much Her leaving hurts, how it seems to rip him from the inside out, how he sometimes feels he can’t breathe, and it’s not because he’s smoked too many cigarettes or because the house, drawn and closed, is stuffy. Because sometimes he feels he literally cannot breathe without Her. He might sink down into the abyss of everything hurting and never come up for air again – even if he could.

And then he finds that what people say is a lie, cause time doesn’t heal. Time gives you endless hours to spend replaying every second you can remember, every exchange, every shared or imagined look or touch. It just gives you a chance to dwell endlessly.

So he breaks, shatters into so many pieces that he’ll never, ever be whole again. He wouldn’t know how to be.

**C**

_Control_

Control is that thing he no longer has. He thinks, maybe, he had it until about a week ago, when he was passed out on a patch of blood-and-Jaeger-stained carpet in front of his couch, the space of the crook of his elbow leaking painless red fluid, the trickle sluggish now after an hour or however long it’s been.

But then there were voices, and there was light, and exclamations and someone had been crying. He didn’t know who, couldn’t even open his eyes to see, and was still so drunk/drugged/tired that the nominal fighting off of the paramedics was pretty useless. There were four of them, one of him, and even in fighting shape, those odds suck. He’d been carted off to this place, where people watch you, where they monitor your food and drink, won’t even let you smoke, for fuck’s sakes, and where they all want to talk about your feelings.

Fuck that. The thing about control is that he doesn’t have any anymore; or not much, anyway, but he still has control over his body, and he’s not gonna give that up.

**D**

_Dreaming_

He’s always wanted to be a rock star; sure, there was that time when he wanted to be like his dad, before Dad became an asshole, but that was short-lived in relation to how long he’s wanted to be on stage, with his bass, the crowd going batshit insane for him, for them. Tokio Hotel gave that dream to him, and he’s not sure who took it away. He’s not even sure it’s gone, but he knows he can’t find it, so it’s either buried in the trash heap he calls his existence or it ran away screaming with everything good in his life a long time ago.

He still dreams of touring though; he relives the moments of the lights going up and making him blink over and over until he can see past the first few rows, of the faces of the girls upturned to him, of the stage shaking cause Gustav, of course, is always heavier and faster than he needs to be, but fuck it, they’re live and Bill can keep up, and Tom can mastermind the production from his soundboards and it’s all good. It’s perfect.

It’s a memory now.

**E**

_Ecstasy_

Georg never had a lot of use for drugs, he reflects now. Not most drugs, anyway – weed when they were kids and thought they were cool and edgy, a popper here or there when the endless interviews and stupid-assed questions …

"How did you come up with the name Tokio Hotel?"

… wouldn’t stop, but you had to smile, smile, smile cause that was your fucking job, not playing. But that was minor – he loved life, didn’t want to go through it blurry, or so scattered that brushing your teeth was an endeavor, or wake up with blood gushing from your nose cause you’d burned out all your nasal cavities. Blow was fun, once in a while, but then you came down and got on with it, with life. But Ecs is different. Ecs is fucking magical cause it’s you, only better. Way better. He’s not Georg, he’s SUPER GEORG and nothing hurts. He can dance forever, drink forever, rub up against anyone he finds pretty, take them to the loo and fuck them, then smile and go back out for more. And if the lucky soul he takes to a back room is tall, black-haired, with too much makeup, more tattoos than any one person needs and a warm metal stud through their tongue?

That’s perfect. They might get fucked twice, he might give them his number – fake – he might take a picture with his phone so he can take it home and dream.

Ah, hello there letter D. Nice to see you again.

**F**

_Fucking_

Well, there is that, thinks Georg, who would kill to have a smoke right about now, cause thinking about nights on the dance floor brings back some memories he’d like to forget. Actually, he’d like to forget most things, do a little Endless Sunshine on his tired brain. 

Sometimes, when he’s a little loopy on leftover Ecs or whatever else was available, he lets himself think about Bill. Lets himself because he has made sure to never let the other boy enter his mind unless he calls him to it; Bill’s surprise sneak attacks in the past have led to some major hurt that Georg can ill afford to deal with. He’s gotten his daily self-medication to a careful point of nothingness, and Bill only gums up the works, so he’s strictly on a “occasional’ basis. Where Georg can hold it down to a random, stray passing thought or two, and in those moments he dreams of yeah, fucking Bill. Sometimes it’s hard and rough against a wall, over a stool, against his truck. Sometimes it’s gentle, loving, soft touches and tiny mewls, slick skin and huge brown eyes looking up into his, promising endless moments just like these. But he runs the show, he knows. He’s got this.

This is the kind of stuff he tells himself, the kind of stuff that makes the therapist just look at him steadily with too-kind blue eyes, even as she has one word for him. “Bullshit.”

He kind of respects her brevity.

**G**

_Gustav_

And then there’s his erstwhile best friend who he kind of hates now. Not because Gustav has done anything, per se – it’s more that he hasn’t done _anything_. Georg doesn’t begrudge him his life, his woman, his domestic bliss – he doesn’t know if its bliss, but Gustav’s not bitching, so he leaves the topic alone – or the fact that Gustav has taken this band breakdown in stride and is calmly doing session work for other bands, mentoring a couple of them, or so he says. It’s not like he hasn’t asked Georg to help, but cool detachment isn’t Georg’s thing, obviously, and cold work is not for him. He’s always thought that it would be nirvana to not have to listen to the twins micromanage or David hyperventilate into a bag in the corner when shit hit the fan, but he knows now that he can’t work that way. He needs the fire, and a handshake and “great job today, thanks,” and a check means nothing to him. Gustav likes it though. He likes GETTING SHIT DONE, he says, and then going home to connubial bliss.

Georg hopes its bliss – his girl doesn’t look like she knows a blowjob from a blow-pop, so he wishes his friend good luck with that.

Still, where is Gustav now? When did he stop giving a shit? When their lives diverged and suddenly Gustav had what Georg had had once? Was that a reason to just disappear?

He knows, deep down, that Gustav tried. Hidden in his secret box of things he will not deal with, that knowledge stays on the bottom of the pile. Loving people just leads to cold white halls and blank notebooks. Hating is easier. Hate is something to hold onto.

Georg has very little to hold onto right now.

**H**

_Hair_

He thinks of this word with a little snort. That came too easily to mind, and he’s not even thinking about his own, which seems to be surviving despite a terrible diet, excessive alcohol and various ‘recreational’ substances. His might be dirty, might be matted, might not exactly be his crowning glory right now, but he’s sure Bill’s still is. He’s seen it be a shitload of different colors and cuts lately, none of which do a thing for him personally, but whatever. Bill does what Bill does, and in his dreams, Bill is still his lion-maned boy who drives him nuts by braiding Georg’s hair whenever he’d let him – often, cause Bill would whine – or who liked to sometimes be petted like a cat. When Tom rolls his eyes and calls Bill his sister, Bill flips him off, then comes and drops onto the floor beside Georg’s legs or commandeers the spot beside him so he can demand petting. Gustav usually shoves him off the couch and grumbles, but Georg?

Georg pets. And pets and smooths and strokes till Bill gives him that smile, that smooch on the cheek and goes off to do whatever Bill does. No one is ever quite sure but Tom, and Tom isn’t saying.

**I**

_Isolation_

He’s technically not isolated here in this hospital or whatever the fuck it is; people can see him. He doesn’t want to see them is the problem, apparently. His mother comes and he does see her for a few minutes, but she starts crying and he has never been good with women crying, and he feels like she wants him to apologize for fucking up, for being human, for hurting. He’s not ready for that yet, and so they are at an impasse. Hell, he knows he might never be ready and isn’t sure what he did was so wrong anyway. Maybe, as ever, the fault was not in the doing, it was in the being discovered.

**J**

_Jealousy_

He has a hard time with this one; jealousy was never an emotion that worked its evil way with him. Why should it? He has all he wanted, or did have, and that is more, he knows, than some people ever have. He had a great band, all of whom were his best friends, he had fame, he had money, he had his girl. What was there to envy when you had it all?

He supposes that’s the problem; if you never had it, you never learned to deal with it, and if it sneaks up on you later when you’re least prepared, it can be tough to deal with. Fortunately, thinks Georg, he’s gotten good at not dealing at all. And it pisses him off that the whole point of being in this plastic nightmare is that others want him to deal.

So he can’t think of anything to be jealous about, but unless he wants to write about jerking off – which he could, he supposes, since nothing fazes his therapist – he feels stuck. But she just looks at him and asks him questions, probing, invasive questions that make him want to smack her, until …

_Baby ….  
X, we have to be quick; Tomi’s gonna be back any second and you know how he is and … yes, fuck right there, you know what to do, you know how to get me going …”_

_The scrape of a zipper as leather pants are forced down just enough to allow a scrap of material too tiny to be called underwear to be pushed aside, just far enough to allow a knowing hand, and then the words, scant as they were, stop, and just inside the door, in the dark, Georg freezes, his heart thumping and hands clammy cold; he can’t move, he can’t let on, he can’t not see. Eyes adjust, and even if he looks at the floor, he knows. All of him knows._

_“OH FUCK,” finally, and the sound of breath coming too rapidly, catching, then the little, high-pitched laugh, that really is too high for any man whose balls have ever dropped in puberty.  
The sick, knotted feeling in his stomach makes him want to vomit, and when he can leave the room without being discovered, he does._

So there is that. Guess he does know the feeling after all.

**K**

_Kissing_

K is hard, and he really, really wants to leave now, and asks why he has to do this in one sitting.

He’s asked what else he has to do with his day, which earns her a glare, then he stares at the paper.

Kissing seems a bit too obvious, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers and he wants this fucking ‘exercise’ done already.

He loves kissing; hasn’t done it in awhile, though; he rarely kisses the guys or girls he finds in clubs, cause to him, kissing is intimate, and nothing about his club encounters is intimate. But it was always a favorite pastime, back when he had emotions, and he does rather miss it at times.

He mentally runs through a list of people he’s kissed, or wanted to, his mind flicking back to the times Tom gave him shit for liking American Idol-like pop stars, or baby tarts in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms – like Tom wouldn’t have hit that as many times as the girls would let him. He thinks of the relatively few groupies he’s kissed, and of Her, of course, and of the exactly none since. Some of the memories are decidedly blurry now and he doesn’t work hard to retrieve them.

Good kisses, you remember; they’re the ones where your heart starts beating faster because you can feel the kiss approaching, all your senses are on alert, and then the ghost of breath across your lips, maybe an awkward nose-bump just before your lips touch. You tilt your head then, and your hands go somewhere, and you don’t care cause it’s a rush and you feel this shivery sort of connection for those tiny, brief moments.

It’s been a fuck of a long time between kisses, and this is the single most depressing thing he’s ever had to concentrate on while sober.

**L**

_Love_

Love is bullshit. Love is just letting yourself in for hurt. Fuck this.

He thinks of, oh, licking, lapping, loneliness, loss – doesn’t want to go there – and finally back to love, and who he loves and doesn’t want to think of if he doesn’t have to, and decides to skip it. What are they gonna do, tie him to the bed again? That will never again be kinky or hot. Ever.

Ever.

**M**

_Music_

Well this one should be simple, right? Music IS simple; it's life. It’s not just the arrangement of chords and tempos, of notes and melody; it’s an actual life force of its own, and Georg has always lived inside his music, even before he started making it himself. Once he discovered the bass, there was nothing else for him, and when he got good at playing, when he met other like-minded people, it became even bigger until it encompassed all of him and he became what he played. When he was on stage, the music would start inside him, then flow out and around him, join with the others, knowing they felt the same, feeling it grow until it was much bigger than them – it was everything.

When things started to get quiet, in that space between calm and deadly silent, he had still tried to make his own music, tried to recreate those moments when at least it still lived inside him, but it got harder and harder to fill this silence, fill this void, and finally, he had stopped. He had given up, given up that part of himself, and with that gone, it wasn’t long till the rest of him followed suit.

**N**

_Never_

The list of things he swore he would never do is still pretty long, a pretty good-sized guide of how to live or not live your life, but now, the list of things he had done anyway was longer. Apparently never say never is more than just a pithy saying; it’s a life rule.

Who knew? 

**O**

_Obsession_

That, too, comes to mind rather too easily, but it’s a false positive, cause Georg’s not obsessive about anything, as he calmly – as calmly as he can at this point anyway – tells the therapist. She looks at him evenly, and he follows her eyes down to his arms.

He flushes. “It’s not a need. It’s a desire.”

She doesn’t blink. “It’s a fine line, isn’t it?”

He can’t think of what to say to refute her, to tell her in no uncertain terms that he has this, that he never wakes up and reaches for the blades instinctively, that he doesn’t check his various cuts and tracings first thing in the morning. He knows he does, but doesn’t know how to show her that this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just _his_ thing.

Since he can’t find the words, he breaks the eye contact and looks back down at the page; his writing is starting to waver a little, cause he’s tired, but now he doesn’t want to stop. He wants this exercise done, figuring nothing else could be this tedious or tell them less about him. If he finishes this, maybe, maybe people will leave him the hell alone.

**P**

_Pain_

Pain cause God, that’s not a loaded topic at all, and Georg figures he knows pain now. He creates it, then drowns it with alcohol, then creates it again. He’s fucking Pygmalion, making over his own body in its new image.

Most people don’t dwell on their pain, he thinks. He hopes not anyway cause it’s a horrible way to exist, but when his just wouldn’t go away, he made the decision, however hazy, to embrace it. He took his sadness over the band just dwindling out of relevance, the pain of his breakup, the dismay over the loss of his best friend (again, those feelings are shut down cause the unexamined life, as it turns out, is the only one really worth living) and turned it into art. Even if he’s the only one who thinks so.

He ripped the bandages off his arms this morning before being set this task; the last marks no longer bleed, which he rather hates, but they are there, still reminding him that he is the master of what he allows himself to feel, no others. They can take his booze, his drugs, they can feed him sleeping pills, but they can’t take this from him. 

Control, from a while ago? This here is where he’s still in charge, maybe the only place he ever will be again.

Georg sets his pen down and flexes; his hand is cramped from writing, the way it used to be when they had signed a thousand cards, it felt like, or made their way down a long line of fans, all thrusting stuff at them. He remembers getting safely into the hotel or venue and thinking that he would never miss that part of being famous, but of course, he does. He misses it all.

His eyes travel from his fingers with the bitten-down nails to the wrists where his first cuts start; wrist cuts are dangerous, of course, which is why so many people start there when they really want to end this life, but carefully done, they can bleed less, but stay longer. His first scars are white now, and lie underneath the fresher, darker ones in an intricate patterns. He worked long hours to make them look like this, and to him, they are as beautiful as Bill’s or Gustav’s tattoos are to them, to the point that when others look at them and squirm, it’s hurtful. Just because his markings come from a place of pain doesn’t make them any less beautiful to him.

It still hurts when he injures himself; he has not yet gotten to a point where there is no pain, nor does he want to; the pain is still intense, still hot, still distracting. He needs it to hurt cause when it hurts, other things hurt less. He needs other things to hurt less and less until they finally cease hurting at all. 

This is his goal.

**Q**

_Quiet_

He’s never minded quiet; as a child, being an only child guaranteed peace and quiet at home, to the point where staying with other people on overnights or school events made his head ache and made him scramble for the safety of a quiet bathroom, locker room, even closet. And once he and the others became a band, quiet became even more of a premium item. Some days, he would have sold his soul for everyone to get a raging case of laryngitis – at least until show time.

But once She left, quiet was no longer his friend, but his enemy. Quiet became too quiet, became silent, became heavy and thick, became deserted, empty.

Funny, he thinks, how what once seemed like a gift became a curse.

**R**

_Reflection_

Georg doesn’t look at himself any more, not really. He checks occasionally to make sure he still has all his bits and parts, but he doesn’t linger. If he did, he might see that he is thin, too thin, far beyond what he even hoped for in his younger years when he despaired of his chipmunk cheeks and little belly with its teeny love handles. He might see that his skin is ashy, sallow, that his eyes look dull, and that his smile is forced. He finds little reason to smile, unless he goes out, forces his body into gear. In a crush of people, noise, smoke, he can smile a little, enough to remind people what he was, enough to charm a girl here, a boy there into the back room or loo. Every once in a while, if he is the one being pinned against the wall, he sees his own face in a bank of mirrors.

He wonders who that man is.

**S**

_Skype_

The twins still keep in touch, after a fashion, and their preferred method is Skype. Tom will text him and tell him to be on at a certain time, and Georg, ever the obedient friend even now, will do so, even if he’s a few minutes late in connecting.

He will listen to the twins babbling at him, running over each other’s sentences, cutting each other off, making fun of each other, laughing. They sound, to him, like nothing has changed, like it was still three, four, five years ago, like they were all still a unit, brothers, four for one and four for all. To them, it seems, time has stood still. Bill looks different, of course, because Bill cannot stand to stay the same – he has to change, experiment. He looks at Georg and sighs over the still the same hair, the lack of ink, of metal, the same old t-shirts, but it’s a fond sigh, an “Oh, Georg,” sort of sigh.

Tom rolls his eyes at both of them – he knows Tom doesn’t care what he looks likes, finds the sameness comforting in a way, and knows that Bill has to prod Georg into trying something new, even though it’s an exercise in futility. Tom is self-deprecating, tossing off lines, being the clown. Or rather, he always has been until lately.

Lately, Georg realizes that Tom has been quieter on Skype, that he spends more time watching then talking, his eyes flicking over Georg’s face, trying to peer beyond the screen. He’s actually asking questions, forcing Georg to think, to lie, even. Subsequently, Georg has ‘forgotten’ to reply to texts, let the calls go to voice mail, and when he does manage to get online, he is evasive. Tom is hurt, he can tell, but he still can’t quite manage to care.

Bill, however, stays the same. He asks no questions, expects no original answers, just goes on about LA, their life, the app, the fangirls who name their dildos “Billi” and send him pictures of same. He does this, Georg realizes, to take the strain of being Georg off Georg.

He hasn’t realized that till now, and he has to stop, get up, walk around, drink a bottle of water, and sit on the windowsill for a while until the therapist asks him to come back to the table.

**T**

_Tom_

Tom is all he can think of for the letter T. He is sure there are other words, other phrases he could go with, but he is growing tired, and emotions are starting to crowd and being evasive is getting harder. So, Tom.

He knows the fangirls, and fanboys too, those who still give a damn, those who still hope that Tokio Hotel will once again be top on their playlists ship he and Tom. He has read enough fan-fiction over the years – they all have – to know that it’s first and foremost the twins together, then he and Tom, he and Gustav, he and Bill. The idea of he and Gustav being involved in any activity that involves lubricant and ends in a boneless, panting heap is still one of the few things that can make him laugh, and they are all four universally a bit freaked out at the thought of Bill and Tom together. Truly, he thinks, if any of these enthusiastic authors spent any substantial time with the twins, they would see the folly of their ways, but some of it is not bad, maybe even a tiny bit hot. Just a bit. But the fans love Torg, and he can actually see it, see it in the way they interpret their banter, the way they pay attention to each other, the way Georg calmly absorbs Tom’s verbal pokes and prods and shakes his head, the way Tom vies for Georg’s attention, even when he’s had it all along.

Tom has always followed Georg like a puppy, always wanted to be like him, always wanted to be a big kid, to have what he sees as Georg’s effortless cool. He looks to Georg to show him how things are supposed to be, how to handle things, how to let things roll off him; nothing ever seems to bother Georg. And Georg has never minded – when the twins don’t have each other’s backs, at those times when they can’t even stand to look at each other, Tom turns to Georg, Bill to Gustav, and together, he and Gustav pat the twins back into shape, into a whole, and send them back to the front.

How odd it must be for Tom now that his brother in arms has fallen, and not just fallen, but crumpled to the floor of his own existence and is laying there, not even trying to get up again.

**U**

_Useless_

This one is easy. Useless is how he feels, how he sees himself. Without love in his life, without his music, without his friends, what is there to him? One night stands, quick encounters where he never bothers to learn the other’s name have never been his style, but now it’s all he can manage, and some nights he doesn’t even finish the deed, just zips up and leaves, shouldering his way out of the club till the night air envelopes him and he can breathe again. 

He doesn’t play safe – he doesn’t care. If no one else cares, why should he?

**V**

_Vivid_

He snorts at this one and thinks immediately of VD, but as far as he knows, he’s escaped that particular fate, at least for the moment. But his train of thought meanders on despite the pounding headache that’s growing behind his eyes, increasing in intensity with every fucking letter. 

Vivid. This headache is fucking VIVID, and he can see colors converging on him, which is never a good sign. But what is vivid besides this?

Memories, unfortunately. As the fog starts to clear – not by his will, no, but because like it or not his brain seems to still function – memories come back, and some of the most vivid center around the same brown-eyed boy that he so unexpectedly recalled way back at the letter J.

He doesn’t know when Bill became such a factor in his fantasies, in his needs or wants. He just knows that Bill is there, and he won’t go away and no amount of Ecs, blow or anything else he’s taken from anonymous donors in clubs can drive him away. Shots of Jaeger, or God help him tequila when he’s desperate, can sometimes make Bill fade a little, waver, but eventually, Georg comes to and dammit, Bill is there.

He looks down at his arms again, at the designs he worked so hard and painstakingly on, and it is no surprise to see Bill’s name there. It is hidden in the patterns, but it’s there. He thought about trying to hide it in his other preferred spots - his stomach and thighs - but he needed the comfort of the letters, for that names to be instantly available to him, so on his inside forearm it lies.

This same spot on Bill’s arm speaks freedom, but on Georg’s arm, it’s a chain, binding him forever now to someone he can’t have, will never have.

**W**

_Wishes_

Wishes, maybe. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” his mum used to say, and Georg has always looked at her like she was mental, cause he was a kid, and kids are literal. However, it occurs to him that if his wishes could actually carry him anywhere, the only place he’d be now is in Bill’s bed, wrapped around the only person he can now ever imagine loving.

God, he really hates this.

**X**

What the fuck do you say for X? He doesn’t know. He writes ‘xylophone’ and decides the psychiatric staff can suck it if they don’t like it. Take that, you smarmy know it all fucks.

**Y**

_Yes_

Yes is what he’d say now if wishes were, in fact horses, or motorcycles or boats or some other means of transportation, and he was asked if he did, in fact, want to be taken to said boy’s bed and cuddled and held and made better. But since the question is never going to be asked, does it really matter what he’d say?

No. He’s beginning to see how this all works, and stares down at the paper, his eyes clouding up, the heavy, hot tears gathering there. He still won’t cry, not for them, for her, for anyone. He won’t even cry for himself. He tells himself this even as he knows it’s a futile demand to make of himself, even as his chest hitches and constricts.

**Z**

_Zoom_

_Zoom into me._

_Is there anybody out there walking alone?_  
Is there anybody out there, out in the cold?  
One heartbeat lost in the crowd 

_Is there anybody shouting what no one can hear?_  
Is there anybody drowning pulled down by their fear?  
I feel you, don't look away 

_Zoom into me, zoom into me_  
I know you're scared when you can't breathe  
I will be there, zoom into me 

He knows the lyrics by heart of course – it’s a fan favorite, and one of his own as well, although he hasn’t thought of it in a while, but of course, faced with this last, final letter, it comes back, hard, in a rush.

And he does cry then, shaking off any potential comforting hand; she’s not made of stone, the doctor, and she wants to help him, but this had to happen. He has to shatter before he can be picked up and remade.

He walks back to his room, not even aware of his feet moving, or of the orderly walking beside him, and when he’s in his room, he crawls into the bed and huddles there while the light changes, fades, disappears entirely, lights the horizon and finally streams through his window again.

He doesn’t know if he sleeps – everything hurts and he doesn’t care if the pain goes away, ever cause he’s used to it now, and in a way, the continual hurt is comforting. At least he’s still alive, though whether that’s a good thing or not is debatable too, but pain is something he gets. Even denied his now normal means of coping, pain is okay. It’s the devil he knows.

~*~

It might have been one day, or five – he doesn’t have any idea, nor does he care.

He’s still in bed, though, although cleaner than before, maybe, and maybe he’s eaten a little, but other than that, his position has barely changed. He still stares out the window, and sometimes his eyes leak that annoying salt water, but it barely moves him.

Gustav comes to see him, and leaves soon after entering the room, frustrated and upset at the near-total lack of response he gets from Georg, and Georg supposes his parting salvo of “Fuck you, Schafer,” didn’t go over too well. In all fairness, he can’t imagine that it would.

Tom calls him on the hospital phone after his cell rings and rings, and sounds wrecked. He asks how it got this bad, why didn’t Georg tell them anything, why didn’t he tell _him_ for fuck’s sakes and what he can do to help? Georg tells him there’s nothing he can do, and Tom refuses to accept that answer, so the conversation ends in a draw.

Bill doesn’t call.

~*~

He’s gotten up – he knows now that it’s been ten days and that his time to wallow is almost over, and soon he’s gonna have to do more work, figure out more than the alphabet of his life. The thought makes him tired, and so he’s spending this last fuck-off day laying on his back on the couch in his room – he’s been moved to a less-monitored room, now that they’ve started to trust him a little, and it has actual furniture. A step up.

The sun is bright, but he’s not bothered and naps, his face turned up to the heat and light, like a cat. He sleeps heavy, and the soft fingertips stroking his hair back from his forehead don’t really register at first; he shifts a little, makes a small sound, and blinks, his eyes drifting back to closed almost immediately.

Until hazily, he realizes whose fingers those are and opens his eyes quickly, to find deep brown eyes fixed on his, on his face, the expression in them serious. He cannot form words immediately or do anything but stare at the man sitting next to him, close enough to touch, if Georg wants to, if he dares. 

His eyes move over Bill; his hair is blonde today, and the sun glints off the lip rings, the septum and casts tiny spots of light on the wall opposite him, the spots disappearing and reappearing every time Bill moves his head even a bit.

He’s holding a thin sheaf of papers, and Georg looks down at them, recognizing them, and a deep flush stains his cheeks as he makes a surprisingly coordinated grab for them, in lieu of saying hello, hi, what the fuck are you doing here, or anything of the sort.

“Give those to me,” he manages, his voice thick. “Those are private.”

“They _were_ private,” says Bill, holding them easily out of Georg’s reach – the bastard is still taller than him, even in sock feet, and his arms have a reach he can’t best. “Now they’re less so.”

Georg glares at him and sits up, and Bill tilts his head and looks back calmly. “Don’t be difficult, Georg,” he says softly. “If you didn’t want me to see this, you wouldn’t have left it out.”

“I didn’t leave it out – it wasn’t even here, I left it with …”

“I found it on the coffee table,” shrugs Bill. “Open, with your scrawly writing everywhere, so if you didn’t put it here, maybe it got here some other way. Does it matter?”

“It’s … that’s personal!”

Bill hands the papers to him. “Take it back then -- not like I didn’t read it all anyway.”

Georg stares down at the floor, and Bill lets him for a moment before moving to sit beside him on the couch and place on amazingly un-manicured finger under his chin forcing him to look at him. “I needed,” he says softly, “to know how you got to this point. I watched you sliding, but I had to see how far you’d fall.”

“Well now you know.”

“And you’re here.”

“How, I don’t know.”

“I do.” Bill’s voice is soft. “I was the someone who broke into your house and called the paramedics, who had you brought here, who hired the doctor that made you do this.”

He points to the papers, then looks back at Georg. “I was sure that you would hate me for this, and maybe you do – probably you do and maybe you should - but I think you love me more than you hate me. And if that’s true, then we can start from there, start to get your life back.”

Georg swallows; he doesn’t even have the strength to deny the claim. “You don’t love me, though, so that’s a slight issue right there, no?”

“Don’t I?”

His voice is soft, deeper than usual, heavy, almost. “If I didn’t love you, would I be here?”

“You love me like a friend.”

Bill sighs. “Yes I do love you like that. And I love you like I love someone that I cannot stand the thought of living without, who is always on my mind, who I never thought I could have. I love you like someone I keep trying to find, but can’t, cause there’s only one perfect original and he’s here. He’s cut himself nearly to shreds, tried to shrink himself down to less than he is, but he’s still here, sitting beside me. He’s still breathing, awake, aware. And now I am, too.”

Bill’s hands wrap around his then, trapping them and they sit that way for a long time, while Georg’s heart and mind try to work themselves around what those words mean.

Bill’s got nothing but time though, and he’s content to sit, listen to Georg breathe, to feel his hands sweat under Bill’s touch. He moves a little closer so their legs and shoulders are pressed together, and he doesn’t let go of Georg’s hands as the other man processes.

Georg is not what he was once, not right now, and maybe never again, but Bill doesn’t care. He knows they’re far from being a real couple, but that if Georg wants that for them like he does, that they’ll get there.

The shadows are lengthening on the white walls before Georg takes a deep breath and moves to lie down on the couch, nudging Bill up, then tugging him back down to lay on top of him. He wraps his arms around Bill and takes a deep breath for what feels like the first time in a very long time.

Bill slides one arm underneath him, rests the other hand on his chest and doesn’t speak; there’s nothing more to say right now. When there is, one of them will start talking, and the other will listen, and maybe break down, maybe get angry, maybe be hurt, but they will still hold hands and hold on and eventually, things will be okay again. Bill believes this.

And someday, so will Georg.


End file.
